AEPHANEMER

You have one of these names that do not really tell what kind of metal you play. How hard was it to come up with the name?
Martin : Actually, Aephanemer is a merge between two french words : “Ephémère” which means ephemeral and “Fânée” which means folded. These two words are related to the Autumn season which is my favorite one. I searched for a good name for a while without finding anything interesting, and eventually it is my little sister who found this name.

How do you introduce the band to people that are new to your music?
-Aephanemer is a Melodic Death Metal band from France. Our music is a kind of merge between scandinavian melodic death metal, slavic folk music and classical symphonies. At least these are our main influences.

We all carry baggage with us that affects us in one way or another but what would you say have been the single greatest influence on your sound?
-Our most important influence is probably early In Flames, especially albums like Jester Race, Whoracle and Colony. Their melodies are so sick!

What is the scene like in your area? Is it important that there is some sort of local scene for a band to develop or can a band still exist in a vacuum of no scene/no bands?
Martin : The Metal scene in our city (Toulouse) is more or less like in the rest of the country. The most famous genres are black metal, death metal, but also hardcore and crossover. As a melodic death metal band we feel a bit lonely and more generally it is harder to make a metal band grow in France than in Germany or Scandinavia. Actually, more than 85% of our fans live in other countries. It is a weakness since it is more complicated to get recognition in our own country, but it is also a strength since it allows us to play more easily in other countries.

Something I have often wondered about is if you feel that you are part of something bigger and greater when you play in a band, that you are part of a movement sort of?
-Of course! We play music to transmit good feelings to other persons and have a positive impact, even a small one, on the people who will listen to our music, on the people who will see our shows. That is really what matters to us. It is insane to realize a great melody or a great riff can improve the mood of hundreds of persons immediately. Seriously, this is magic!

When you play the sort of music you play I guess you cannot have birds and bees on the cover of your album? What is a great album cover to you?
-This is a very difficult question. To me, a good cover must give a glimpse of what the listener will find in the album. Will it be something harsh ? Something easy ? Something dark ? Of course I’m only mentioning big categories here but there are many shades of feelings you can convey through a cover.

What is your opinion on digital verses physical? Is digital killing music?
-The industry is evolving and the rules are changing. I can understand many persons struggle with this, but these rules are the only one I know so it seems normal to me. I would even say that these new rules are way more favorable to Aephanemer than the old ones.
Back in the days, you needed a label believing in you to be able to release music and to give shows in foreign countries. You needed a label to do anything serious.
With these rules we would still be a garage band with absolutely zero fans, since labels are not interested to sign us. Instead, we release our music ourselves, we promote our band ourselves and we book ourselves in France and other countries. Last year we played to Wacken thanks to these new rules, and this year we will play in France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain thanks to them. These new rules allow us to show our music to people even without the support of a label and it changes everything to us.

What kind live scene is there for bands like yours?
-Melodic Death Metal is a cool genre because it is relatively accessible and many people like it, even if there are death metal vocals.
So for example we can book ourselves in general metal festivals, folk metal festivals, death metal festivals, power metal festivals, … almost everywhere, except extreme metal and hardcore festivals.

When you play live is it a happening or do you see it more as a party?
-We do not see as a party but we love doing it, and I think it is obvious since we are always smiling. We love to connect with people.

What would you like to see the future bring?
-We hope our new album will allow us to grow and give more shows, bigger shows in more countries!
Thank you for this interview!